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CHAPTER NINE:
❝ Smoke And Steel ❞
"Mom," Esme said. She sat in the pews in St. Agnes Church, her phone to her ear. The Van Dynes had never been churchgoers, they followed a different kind of religion - of bruised knuckles, and busted lips, and bloody hands. Through the phone static, she could hear feel the warmth of English autumn seep through - her mother's laughter, her contagious happiness. Esme blinked away the tear that clouded her vision. "Mom, I . . . " She swallowed harshly and looked towards the statue of Mary - probably Mary? She heard her mother hum in encouragement. "It's Simon. Something's happened to him. Something that - that can't be undone. He's different." And it's my fault. Though she had meant to, she didn't say it yet Hope still heard it.
She heard her words, but they seemed to bounce off her as if there were an invisible wall surrounding her. Blood was pounding in her ears and here she was kneeling, at the feet of someone who could not once save her, praying for her friend's soul.
"Did you hear me, Esme?" Hope's voice cut through the ocean. Esme had not heard her before, but as the buzzing in her ear slowly diminished, she heard her say, "If you can love a monster in a man's skin, you can love a man in a monster's skin." Esme knew her mother was talking about her father. "We are, all of us, free to make our own choices. It's one of the most important gifts that God has given us. See, evil exists, and we are tempted. But we are not compelled. We all do terrible things sometimes. That's expected. It's -- it's baked into us from the start. But it's that feeling of remorse, that guilt, that terrible guilt, burning inside your chest, that's . . . that's what distinguishes us in God's eyes. None of us are blameless. Except the soul that's not yet conceived and the animals. They're the only innocents." Esme rose her eyes to the statue in front of her and exhaled a shuddered breath. Through the static, she heard her mother say. "John 16:22. It's brief, I promise, but it's helped me on more than one occasion."
And that was all they talked about. Esme stood up and walked towards where the Bible was kept and leafed through the pages until she found it, John 16:22. She read it softly, whispering to herself as her eyes swelled with tears. "So also you now indeed have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy, no man shall take from you."
She'd talked to Simon on the phone a few times but she hadn't seen him since they'd brought him, groggy and blood-splattered, to Luke's house in the dark early hours of that horrible morning to clean up before driving him home. She'd thought he ought to go to the Institute, but of course, that was impossible. Simon would never see the inside of a church or synagogue again. Now, as she mounted the steps to Luke's porch, her mouth went dry and her throat swelled with the pressure of tears. She told herself not to cry. Crying would only make him feel worse. At the sight of his face, she buried her teeth in her bottom lip.
